Andrew Macdonald
Colorado Furniture
click image to enlarge
Andrew Macdonald
Lafayette, Colorado

In my shop in Lafayette I create hand-made furniture and lamps featuring
Colorado alabaster.  I was born and raised in the Boston area where I became a
carpenter.  In the mid-1980s I was looking for something unique to create on
the lathe.  I tried making found-wood vessels, root-ball turned sculpture, and
fragile bowls of exotic woods.  Then in late 1988 I read an article in Fine
Woodworking magazine by Max Krimmel of Nederland, CO about turning
alabaster.  I was fascinated by the idea and remain so to this day.

Fortuitously, my wife Christine was accepted to graduate school at the
University of Colorado and we moved to Boulder in the summer of 1989.  She
bought my first rock from Colorado Alabaster Supply in Fort Collins and I began
to learn how to work with this amazing stone.  Using Max Krimmel’s methods I
started turning bowls based on my own shapes and ideas.  I changed to making
functional, directly illuminated pieces when I started to expand the uses of the
stone into panels, or panes, and lathe-turning became a part of the process
rather than the process itself.  
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Design inspirations come from any number of
places and are usually traditional and classic.

Sometimes, the shape of a specific piece of
alabaster or its color and figure will drive the
design of the piece.  I use fluorescent bulbs to
make the translucent stone glow with a warm
sensuous light without the heat build-up that
has traditionally prematurely ruined alabaster
lighting.

I try to not let equipment limitations influence a
design, instead using my self-taught,
trial-and-error, make-a-tool methods to
overcome obstacles.  

I use traditional woodworking tools, standard
wood and metalworking equipment, and highly
modified task-specific shop-made tool creations
to create pieces that showcase the beauty of the
stone and wood together.  
To learn more or to order please visit
Andrew Macdonald's website by
clicking the Colorful Logo.
Andrew Macdonald makes each alabaster lamp
by hand in his studio in Lafayette, Colorado, a
small town near the base of the Rocky
Mountains. Here he hollows and polishes the
alabaster to a wall thickness of about ¼ of an
inch, and turns wood and copper on a lathe to
form a base and accents. He then illuminates
the lamp base from within, revealing the
stone's natural beauty.

The wood and stone are individually crafted
and polished with multiple coats of
hand-rubbed varnish. No staining or coloring
of the stone is ever done. While pairs can be
ordered, with every care taken to use stones
quarried from the same area (for similar
veining and color), as a handmade item of
natural materials no two will ever be exactly
the same. Each piece is signed and
hand-numbered.
Having made my living as a carpenter for 25 years I
have a deep appreciation for fine wood furniture and I
am careful to ensure that my designs, joinery
methods, and choice of woods enhance the aura of the
illuminated stone.  I never stain or artificially color
wood or alabaster and I will occasionally include a
natural imperfection as part of the design.  
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